Don't you just love weekdays?
I sure don't. Nothing is more fun than staring at the walls....
I don't know what happened today, but it was slooooow. It was cool and damp today, but not raining. Usually a dreary day makes for at least decent business. Might as well have been warm and sunny for the traffic I saw this evening. Bleh.
I called up some of my regulars and offered free games just to get another car in the parking lot. (People attract people.)
I strongly believe in the physcological aspects of crowds/parking/etc.
For instance, my walk-in business typically is busiest when I have parties in the store as well. Lots of cars in the lot and people coming and going makes the place look more attractive to people who happen to find themselves driving past.
I suspect an empty lot makes us look uninteresting or even 'closed'. It's a real downside to having pretty much our own parking out front.
When business is slow, I further encourage longer stays (and repeat visits hopefully) with freebies. I tell people that I appreciate them coming in on a weekday. I might offer a free soda, extra ticket points, a free game or a turn in the bounce house for the kids.
Lately I've also let some people play with the 4 Laser Tag sets we have. Sort of a preview to the upcoming attraction.
I randomly do some of the giveaways on busy days too, but most of the time it is to encourage the weekday visits. If someone specifically mentions it is their first visit, I am more likely to toss in something, regardless of the day too. "Really? Thanks for coming in! How'd you find out about us?"
I have GOT to come up with some weekday promotions.
We don't have pizza, but we resale it from a Papa John's next door. Tonight I came up with something that might work without costing me much besides time and effort:
Slice of pizza
20 oz. Soda and refill
10 tokens
all for $5.
It would have a slight proffit margin for us, and might even run at a slight loss once waste is factored in. The idea though is to get people in the door. Some might spend the $5 and be done with it, but others would probably spend more. And any cars would help attract more people and so on.
Looks like it could help. Only question is how long it would take to catch on. I'd initially advertise it in the arcade and at Papa John's. And I could add a crawler to our TV spot whenever we decide to run it again.
Maybe writing this down will give me more motivation to make a commitment to actually start something.
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2 comments:
Hehe, weekdays were always loads of fun at the arcade, nothing to do other than talk with your co-workers and clean games over and over again.
Once you get laser tag in, there is something you definently should consider trying - pick one day of the week such as Wednesday to offer $1-an-entry price for LT. That is, if the regular price is something like $4. We did that for some time at the arcade/laser tag place I worked at and Wednesdays were about as busy as a Friday. To prove that it wasn't an anamoly, a few months after I started we got a new head manager who decided that it was stupid to charge a lower price on Wednesdays and he axed the idea so it was the same price throughout the week. You can guess what happened - Wednesday's became just like other weekdays all of the sudden and of course a lot of the regulars that came in on Wednesday were pretty peeved and stopped coming all together. It was the death of a smart strategy - not only did it bring them in the door for laser tag but they played several LT games and while they waited they would play the arcades. Because they perceived a deal they actually spent more money but they got more for their money at the same time. The same strategy might work with parties too - offer a lower price to people that come to party on a certain weekday and they might consider it over waiting until the weekend.
You also might think about putting your TV spot up on Youtube. I plan on using Youtube as a great resource for my own arcade to help drum up interest/hype.
Sometimes I come up with ideas but I don't pull the trigger because I'm not sure of all of the ramifications.
Taking something away from people always ticks 'em off. I learned a long time ago to always start a new game at the highest price you think it will get.
Lowering prices never gets complaints!
I don't expect my Laser Tag to make a fortune in and of itself, but I think that it will be pretty busy and if it only breaks even I should still profit from it, because of all the coin drop in the arcade from people waiting for their turns.
On parties, we actually steer smaller ones to weekdays already, I just don't want to fill up the peak days with less profitable smaller groups. (We charge per head right now, and try to book only for 8+ on weekends.)
I have discussed publicizing a $10 discount for weekday bookings.
Right now we are slow enough that the point is moot, but once I get the LT in I hope that demand increases and policies and discounts like that will actually matter.
-eric
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